- In your groups, answer the question, "What is a circle?"
- Absolutely no book-looking or Googling. If all goes well, you will be frustrated. Your peers will frustrate you. I will frustrate you. Don't rob anybody else of this beautiful struggle. If your definition includes the word locus, you are automatically disqualified from further participation.
- Each group will have one representative present your definition to the class. No clarification. No on-the-fly editing. No examples. No pantomime. Your definition will include, and be limited to, English words in some kind of semantically meaningful order. Introduce variables at your own risk.
- If you're going to refer to some other mathematical object (and I suspect you will), make sure it's not an object whose definition requires the concept of circle in the first place. (Ancillary benefit: you will be one of the approximately .01% of the population who learns what "begging the question" actually means.)
- Once a group presents a definition, here is your new job: construct a figure that meets the given definition precisely, but is not a circle. Pick nits. You are a counterexample machine. A bonus of my undying respect for the most ridiculous non-circle of the day.
- When you find a counterexample, make a note of the loophole you exploited. What is non-circley about your figure?
180 Days of Ideas for Discussion in Math Class. (as of 9July2014, we're in overtime!)
Friday, February 21, 2014
36: What is a circle?
Taken from Chris Lusto @Lustomatical
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Thanks for sharing this! I look forward to trying it with my students, and I'm glad to know about the blog from which this came.
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